3/15/2007 @ 10:00AM

Reality Stars' Second Acts

Want to be famous? Get on a reality show. Want to stay famous? Try something else.

A long, long time ago–when getting on national television was still a relatively rare thing for most people–the notion of appearing on a reality show like The Real World or Survivor seemed like a good shortcut to stardom.

Not so much. Best case scenario: Being on reality show leads to a career in reality TV. That could mean showing up on spin-off shows. More likely, it involves being paid to dish about the one you were already on at college “lectures” or bar crawls.

But as more reality shows, and their stars, flood the market, even those opportunities are harder to come by. And the ones that do exist pay less and less. Booking agents say top reality stars used to be able to command up to $25,000 for speaking engagements after appearing on CBS‘s
Survivor or
Walt Disney
-owned ABC’s The Bachelor. Now they are more likely to earn between $5,000 and $10,000, not including transportation or accommodations. Prices for a simple “meet and greet” at a bar, popular among the MTV set, have dropped from the $1,500 to $3,500 range to $1,000 to $3,000.

“It’s a simple case of supply and demand,” says celebrity booking agent Michael Martin, who counts some 200 former MTV cast members as clients. “We started to see a dip two years ago, because all of these reality shows came out and started to dilute the field.”

Consider David “Puck” Rainey, the famously crass cast member on 1994′s The Real World: San Francisco. After he crisscrossed the country giving college lectures for several years, the self-titled “Godfather of Reality TV” says he’s seen his speaking fees plummet from $3,500 to $500 in recent years. “I don’t do them anymore,” he says. “For 500 bucks, it’s not worth it for me.”

As the genre ages, the motivations to do a show and the expectations of what should follow have changed as well. “People think being on a show is going to be their ticket to fame and fortune,” says Rainey, who claims “free rent” was his incentive more than a decade ago.

But while the luckiest reality TV stars are able to show up on more reality shows, that’s usually about it. Getting roles other than “reality show contestant” is tough for people who are most famous for being, um, reality show contestants. “You’ve exposed your life, and when people know too much about you, it’s harder to create a character as an actor,” says Jon Murray, executive producer of The Real World, the pioneering reality show that still runs on Viacom‘s
MTV. “It’s important for actors to keep some mystery about them.”

Survivor winner Ethan Zohn, 33, says he’s had his share of audition disappointments. “Right off the bat, there’s a bit of a strike against you being a reality star,” he says. “You’ll walk into an audition for a real role or a real hosting job, and the [casting director] will go, ‘Oh, that’s the Survivor guy. We don’t want the Survivor guy.’”

Jacinda Barrett, who appeared in 1995′s The Real World: London before taking on roles in 2006′s TheLast Kiss and Poseidon, is an exception. So is Survivor star Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who now has a full-time position as co-host on ABC’s late-morning gabfest The View.

And then there’s The Real World: Chicago’s Tonya Cooley, who recently went soft-core. The former reality TV star appeared in Lost in Ecstasy, a porn film on Cinemax.